“A decidedly bookish, musical, thinking young man”

[Exerpted from "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" by Thomas Hardy, first published 1891.]

Some two or three years before Angel’s appearance at the Marlott dance, on a day when he had left school and was pursuing his studies at home, a parcel came to the vicarage from the local bookseller’s, directed to the Reverend James Clare. The vicar, having opened it and found it to contain a book, read a few pages; whereupon he jumped up from his seat and went straight to the shop with the book under his arm.

‘Why has this been sent to my house?’ he asked peremptorily, holding up the volume.

‘It was ordered, sir.’

‘Not by me, or any one belonging to me, I am happy to say.’

The shopkeeper looked into his order-book.

‘Oh, it has been misdirected, sir,’ he said. ‘It was ordered my Mr. Angel Clare, and should have been sent to him.’

Mr. Clare winced as if he had been struck. He went home pale and dejected, and called Angel into his study.

‘Look into this book, my boy,’ he said. ‘What do you know about it?’

‘I ordered it,’ said Angel simply.

‘What for?’

‘To read.’

‘How can you think of reading it?’

‘How can I? Why–it is a system of philosophy. There is no more moral, or even religious, work published.’

‘Yes–moral enough; I don’t deny that. But religious!–and for you, who intend to be a minister of the Gospel!’

‘Since you have alluded to the matter, father,’ said the son, with anxious thought upon his face, ‘I should like to say, once for all, that I should prefer not to take Orders. I fear I could not conscientiously do so. I love the Church as one loves a parent. I shall always have the warmest affection for her. There is no institution for whose history I have a deeper admiration; but I cannot honestly be ordained her minister, as my brothers are, while she refuses to liberate her mind from an untenable redemptive theolatry.’

It had never occurred to the straightforward and simple-minded Vicar that one of his own flesh and blood could come to this! He was stultified, shocked, paralyzed. And if Angel were not going to enter the Church, what was the use of sending him to Cambridge? The University as a step to anything but ordination seemed, to this man of fixed ideas, a preface without a volume. He was a man not merely religious, but devout; a firm believer–not as the phrase is noe elusively construed by theological thimble-riggers in the Church and out of it, but in the old and ardent sens of the Evangelical school: one who could

Indeed opine
That the Eternal and Divine
Did, eighteen centuries ago
In very truth . . .

Angel’s father tried argument, persuasion, entreaty.

‘No, father; I cannot underwrite Article Four (leave alone the rest), taking it “in the literal and grammatical sense” as required by the Declaration; and, therefore, I can’t be a parson in the present state of affairs,’ said Angel. ‘My whole instinct in matters of religion is towards reconstruction; to quote your favourite Epistle to the Hebrews, “the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.”‘

His father grieved so deeply that it made Angel quite ill to see him.

‘What is the good of your mother and me economizing and stinting ourselves to give you a University education, if it is not to be used for the honour and glory of God?’ his father repeated.

‘Why, that it may be used for the honour and glory of man, father.’

. . . .

The effects of this decisive debate were not long in showing themselves. He spent years and years in desultory studies, undertakings, and meditations; he began to evince considerable indifference to social forms and observances. The material distinctions of rank and wealth he increasingly despised. Even the ‘good old family’ (to use a favourite phrase of a late local worthy) had no aroma for him unless there were good new resolutions in its representatives.

. . . .

Unexpectedly he began to like the outdoor life for its own sake, and for what it brought, apart from its bearing on his own proposed career. Considering his position he became wonderfully free from the chronic melancholy which is taking hold of the civilized races with the decline of belief in a beneficent Power. For the first time of late years he could read as his musings inclined him, without any eye to cramming for a profession, since the few farming handbooks which he deemed it desirable to master occupied him but little time.

He grew away from old associations, and saw something new in life and humanity. Secondarily, he made close acquaintance with phenomena which he had before known but darkly–the seasons in their moods, morning and evening, night and noon, winds in their different tempers, trees, waters, and mists, shades and silence, and the voices of inanimate things.

“She began to dream with her eyes open, lifting her face to the wind.”

I’d like to introduce you to Chloe Malone. Aside from the obvious attraction, of course the decadently beautiful cover with golden lettering, Chloe’s a real darling. She comes from a family of past wealth, current “almost poverty”–which means pawning heirloom furniture and jewels for the sake of purchasing Chloe expensive new clothes. For the sake of catching her a millionaire husband, who would of course solve all their problems. She doesn’t mind, really, because she’s determined that at any cost she won’t love her husband. She doesn’t believe in love, certainly not as a foundation of marriage. If you don’t care so much, you won’t be so disappointed. And besides, she likes jewels. And silk. And fur. And feathers. So she dutifully goes hubby-hunting according to the wishes of her destitute mother and her rather intimidating godmother, and she finds the perfect fellow for the job.

But Chloe meets a man who tells her that women have no right to live on a husband’s money unless they’re contributing something useful to the world. Good looks count for nothing. She’s “pretty but useless.” Decorative, ornamental. What’s more, he likes to work. He challenges everything, every single ideal, that Chloe was raised on. Chloe starts to think, to read, to question. Her maternal figures express a desire to get her “safely married” before she starts thinking too much, but she continues to study entomology out of library books. Her fiance “laughs indulgently” at her when she’s “being cute” by trying to initiate intelligent conversation, but she holds herself apart and continues to seek knowledge.

Both the feminist movement (“What is the feminist movement?” inquired Mrs. Malone, after a polite semblance of mirth. Chloe blew her mother a kiss. “I may be in it, someday, darlingest. Ask me, then.”) and socialism (“What is this,” he inquired lightly, “a socialist meeting?”) are mentioned by name, and both concepts are threaded throughout the story even when left unnamed. Chloe eventually makes her decision, rejecting the “nets,” the “chains” thrown around her by society and the people who love her: the trap of luxury, the exchange of herself for a comfortable life, the ridiculous gender roles too often reinforced even today. The futility and depression that inevitably accompanies a relationship based on hierarchy. The love of money. (That was the core of living. Not money, not position, not ease, not love-in-idleness, but the man and the woman working together, the utter, unspoken comradeship of the fight, fought shoulder to shoulder…) Basically, I’m just very, very excited to own this little gem. It’s like a subversive piece of important information, disguised as a romance novel for girls, whispering to them that they have choices in life and they shouldn’t let others decide their lives for them. I love to imagine girls reading this, and novels like this, under the nose of their unsuspecting fathers, preparing themselves for their own big jump. It was published in 1916, right in the middle of the suffrage movement. A not-so-subtle story of a woman’s empowerment by way of education and independence. Subversive, subversive! I love subverting culture. :) Look at that deceptively innocent cover! And what’s more, the way it looks inside the cover is this: Fannie Heaslip Lea was actually Fannie Heaslip Agee. The book is dedicated to James J. Lea, presumably her husband, but it’s copyrighted under her own name, Agee. Sounds to me like the publishing company felt they needed to change her name on the cover to her husband’s name so it would sell. Rather like the whole “Hey, you wrote this book but I’m a man and you’re a woman so let’s put my name on the cover in front of yours and say we cowrote it, otherwise it will never sell” concept, rather like the culture of women writers (George Eliot, anyone?) forced to work under cover as a man in order to be published, or even to remain completely anonymous. So the cover says Lea. But she was actually Agee. Hmmm, sounds like a Lucy Stoner to me! :)

Anyway, you can read the whole thing here, if you like!

EDIT: Merci, Michael, for the info. :) I’ve been meaning to look her up, haven’t gotten around to it yet. Haha, I like it even better this way, with her own personal name stamped right on the cover..

chloe malone

Social commentary, Hawthorne style.

I’m reading The Scarlet Letter again because I treated it unfairly in high school. I don’t know why; I always liked the story, and I always liked Nathaniel Hawthorne. I am going to assume it was because that was the year we homeschooled one of my friends, and we kind of encouraged each other to be more miserable in school than we really were. Or at least that’s how it was for me. Because I really did like school, particularly anything related to art/literature/history. So I just snagged it at the library and this time I’m treating it the way it deserves to be treated.

Here’s an exerpt from The Custom House, the short story preface:

From the loftiest point of its roof, during precisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic; but with the thirteen stripes turned vertically, instead of horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil, and not a military post of Uncle Sam’s government, is here established*. Its front is ornamented with a portico of half a dozen wooden pillars supporting a balcony, beneath which a flight of wide granite steps descends towards the street. Over the entrance  hovers an enormous specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears, by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens, careful of their safety, against intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings. Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking, at this very moment, to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eiderdown pillow. But she has no great tenderness, even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later–oftener soon than late–is apt to fling off her nestlings, with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows.

© The Custom House, 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne

*How ironic that we no longer have any “vertical stripes” or any alternate versions of the American flag outside of history books. I guess our only representation in the world is our military presence. How nice.

“Give me your hand, / Turn out your toe, / All lovers know / The way to go…”

A few weeks ago I read the book Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix and I think you should all go read it. It’s about the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. I mean it’s about three girls, Bella and Yetta and Jane, all from different backgrounds, who become friends because of the Triangle. There’s symbolism all throughout the book, symbolism about fire, tinder, sparks, escape…symbolism about triangles and the triangle of friends the girls become. I’ll tell you right now (because you learn it at the very beginning of the book, so no spoilers here) that two of the girls die in the fire, and one lives to tell the tale. I’ll also tell you that even though I’ve studied this in history and everything, and even though I was warned from page one, I felt like these girls were (or could have been, or I wished they were) my friends, and I was so devastated to lose them that I cried. 

But really, if you have any interest in women’s rights, workers’ rights, labor unions, the history of industrialism, politics, socialism, capitalism, immigration, safety laws, whatever, you should pick this up at your library or friendly neighborhood bookstore. It’s a YA book, it’s easy reading, other than the obviously tragic subject material, educational, provocative, sensitive, yeah, all that stuff. There’s also an afterword that will help your favorite YA connect the concepts and issues in the book to current equivalents. You know what would be really neat? To raise socially conscious kids and young adults who are passionate about education and about solving the world’s problems. So. Go find it. To spur you onward in your little quest, I’m including the following exerpt…

Jane stood on the threshold and looked back and forth–foyer or study, white marble or dark wood…She felt like she was making a momentous decision. The other time she’d felt this way, deciding to bring Bella home, she’d been impulsive, like someone tossing a coin into the air, letting chance determine her fate. That decision could have gone either way. This time, Jane wanted to be sure she knew what she was doing.

She swallowed hard and stepped forward, into her father’s study.

“I have not fallen in with a dangerous, socialist crowd,” she said. “What they say is true. Those girls don’t make enough money. And their bosses have paid off the police and other…other thugs to beat them up. It isn’t right.”

Father blew out a thin stream of smoke.

“Girls shouldn’t bewalking the picket line,” he said. “For that matter, they shouldn’t be working in factories.”

“What would you have them do to survive?” Jane asked.

Father was rifling through papers, lifting them from one stack into another.

“Their fathers or brothers or husbands should take care of them,” he said, without even looking up.

“What if they don’t have fathers or brothers or husbands?” Jane asked. She was thinking of the Italian girl, Bella. But something caught in her throat, a cry twisted. “What if that was me?”

Father slammed his hand down on his stack of papers.

“For heaven’s sake, Jane, this is ridiculous!” he fumed. “You would never be in a situation like those girls. They’re not like you. I’m not sure what stories they’ve told you to get your sympathy, but I can assure you, it’s really none of your business and probably mostly lies, besides. They’re very calculating, those Jews.”

“They’re not all Jewish,” Jane said. “They’re Italian, Irish–”

“Immigrants,” Father said, biting down on his cigar. His lip curled up in disgust.

“Some are Americans!” Jane said. “And anyhow, I’ve seen the police beating them, it’s not just stories I’ve heard–I’ve seen it with my own eyes! The girls are doing nothing more than walk around, and they get punched and kicked…and they’re girls!”

Father smashed his cigar down into the ashtray Mrs. O’Malley slipped onto his desk before tiptoeing back out.

“It’s unfortunate that there are girls involved,” Father said. “But that’s how it is in business. It’s not some polite little game of croquet. Why, I’ve hired strikebreakers myself.

Strikebreakers, Jane thought dizzily. The people beating up the strikers. In her mind she could see fists hitting faces, heads jerking back, bodies crumbling to the ground. My own father would hire such cretins, arrange such attacks?

“When?” she asked, through lips that felt strangely numb.

Father wave his cigar at her impatiently.

“You were a baby,” he said, in a tone that implied she was a baby still, in terms of what she knew about the world.

“Did…did Mother know?”

“What does it matter?” Father said. “It had to be done. If I’d let the union in, let the workers take control of my factory, I’d have been ruined. It’s a battlefield out there, and only the strong can survive. You better be glad I hired strikebreakers, young lady, because otherwise we wouldn’t have any of this.” His gesture took in the dark wood paneling of his study, the marble floor of the foyer, the servants waiting outside the door. “I can assure you, you wouldn’t have such nice dresses.”

Jane looked down at her frothy dress, a sea of ruffles and frills.

“Then I don’t want them,” Jane said. She tore at the collar of the dress, but that was ridiculous–this dress was so complicated it usually took both a maid and Miss Milhouse to get her in and out of it. And would she really want to be standing there in front of her father in her under-things?

His money paid for my under-things too….

“I don’t want anything your money buys, if that’s how you got it!” Jane yelled. “Hiring strikebreakers, hurting people, probably starving them too–”

“Oh, please, Jane,” Father huffed. “That’s how the world works! Some people are rich and some are poor, and by God, if I can be on the rich side, that’s where I’m going to stand! Would you have us all living in hovels, wearing sackcloth and ashes, eating gruel? That’s what the socialists want. They’d pull everyone down to their level if they could–”

But Jane had already whirled away from him. Blindly, she darted out the study door, out the front door…Mr. Corrigan was standing in the driveway by the car, brushing snow from the windshield.

“Please!” Jane shouted at him, sliding into the backseat. “You have to take me to…” Where could she go? Somehwere away from this house, away from her father.

Mr. Corrigan glanced nervously back at the house, at the huge windows staring out at them, where anyone could be watching.

“I’m sorry, miss,” he said. “I’m not allowed.”

“Fine!” Jane shouted. “Be that way!” Her father’s tainted money had bought the car, too, and Mr. Corrigan’s services. She slipped back out into the snow, slamming the car door behind her. She began stomping off down the snowy driveway.

“Wait!” Mr. Corrigan called. “You don’t have your coat!”

Jane shrugged, and kept going.

“Then”–Mr. Corrigan chased after her and placed one of the lap blankets from the car around her shoulders– “at least wear this!”

Jane knew she should shove it down in the snow, because her father’s money had bought the lap blanket, just like everything else. But it was warm around her shoulders, and it made her feel a solidarity with Bella, who’d also huddled in a blanket in her moment of tragedy: Bella had lost her entire family, and now Jane had to break away from her father, because he was an evil, evil man.

Jane tramped through the snow, past mansions and monstrous estates. Some of them were houses she’d always admired and secretly envied, but now when she glanced toward the twists of wrought-iron gates she thought she saw the twisted faces of workers who’d toiled and starved just so the industrialists could have a fine gate. It was like seeing the grimy enginge beneath the car’s gleaming exterior: Suddenly she could see how all the glitter and elegance, all the excess and opulence, had been built on the backs of workers like Bella and Yetta, workers calling out for justice.

And workers like Mr. Corrigan trying to support seven children on twenty-five dollars a week, because that’s all my father pays him.

So my parents obviously haven’t hired people to beat up union members, and we’re middle, not upper class, but I’ve been having some epiphanies of my own, and I’m coming to the same place, the same realizations as Jane and I feel a really strong connection with her. I know what it’s like to reject that I somehow deserve to be well-off while others starve and die of preventable diseases and work in sweatshops, and I know what it’s like to be ridiculed and insulted for believing something different, namely that other people are as valuable as you and I. If you agree, or if you disagree but are interested just the same, or if you’re coming to realizations of your own, I seriously recommend this book to thee. Ha, I feel like Reading Rainbow. Long live Reading Rainbow! <3

Your turn!

What Kind of Reader Are You?
Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm

You’re probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people’s grammatical mistakes make you insane.

Dedicated Reader

Book Snob

Literate Good Citizen

Non-Reader

Fad Reader

All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.

Soooooooooo if you didn’t know, I’m a super big fan of dystopia novels and like..vintage political satire, and yesterday I reread Orwell’s Animal Farm. He was brilliant, you know. I’m sure you know..

Here’s my question du jour, and I would love some participation here:

a] If you’ve read Animal Farm: At what point were the actions of the pigs no longer acceptable or justifiable to you?

b] If you’ve not read Animal Farm: Go read it..it’s short, and this post will be here when you come back.

AGNES IS WRITING ME A BOOK!!!!

Finally! Recognition in the publishing market.